The tropics continue to be active but there are currently no significant threats to the US. Out of that "fruit salad" we had a few days ago, as some like to call it, Paulette and Rene have formed. You can find the forecast cones for both on the NHC website. Paulette has a chance to sneak in towards the East Coast but it looks like it will probably curve out to sea. Rene is not considered a threat at this time and will most likely curve out to sea. The orange area off the Carolinas, now Invest 94L, bears some watching but is not expected to significantly develop.
The red area way out east is a strong tropical wave that will enter the Atlantic on Thursday. This we really need to start watching around the end of the week, but it'll be a week and a half or better before we would get concerned about it. The models have pretty excited about developing it. The GFS, Euro, and others, along with many of their ensembles, show it developing as it moves west. You can see TC genesis probabilities for it below (ignore the other areas). What is concerning is that a track out to sea is maybe less likely for this system, but this is far from certain at this point in the forecast. We could definitely see a storm threatening the northern Lesser Antilles towards mid next week.
We're getting to the time of year where we're going to start getting a regular cycle of cold fronts moving east and we might actually see some cooler weather from one in a few weeks. What these fronts will do occasionally, depending on timing and location, is break down the high pressure over the Atlantic that wants to steer storms to the US. This could allow any storms to recurve to sea away from the US. We're starting to see that now with Paulette and Rene. These fronts can also help pull storms up from the south if they're way down in the Caribbean or spin up tropical cyclones in the Gulf or off the East Coast if they leave some energy behind, they can be a double edged sword.
This season continues to set records, Paulette and Rene are the earliest "P" and "R" storms. We only have four more letters and then we start using the Greek alphabet! Thankfully, even though we've had an above average number of storms, overall they haven't been very strong. Below is a plot of Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) for the season from Colorado State's site and as you can see we're actually a hair behind where an average season would be.
That's all I have for today. I'll have another update around the end of the week once we know more about what this next wave is going to do.
Have a great week.
Chris
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